Adam and Eve, the first humans!

Much Love to bredin Soldier of Jah and All.

Many of stories found in the so called holy books are allegories made my the people who fathomed/experienced the inner world of this mystic world. And it is their love for the others who have not yet entered the world of inner exploration of the nature of their Being and the Iration. And they decode certain hidden patterns of life in beautiful and oftentimes intiguing stories that only the ones who meant to be helped will get to know the truth behind it. Others may find them, entertaining or carrying a certain moral depiction to draw the fascintation towards a certain life lesson. And often time there is bound to be a hidden meaning and hidden keys.

One of such stories is the beautiful story about Genesis and The First Humans; Adam and Eva.

Iman had happened to find a very interesting perspective of the story from into connection to the Art of Drawing Mandala and the hidden science of Yantra and Matra in connection to Sacred Geometry which is basicly Life Patterns that comes outta music of Life; decoded into realised outer form; and as they fashion themselves from the hidden Implicated Order.

So there is something from the Sufi Orders, the people who worked the inner mysteries of life thru their self invented methods and techniques. And Sufi is the mystical part of Islamic Religion. And it is worthy to learn their ways... There goes there tradition of drawing the NAQISHBAND. In Swahili, a language very much related in vocabulary with Arabic... Naqsh is pronounced nakishi and it means to make a decoration on the object. But is stead of just decorating by drawing or curving certain patterns on the surface; hidden message have been transmitted from time to time in the society even without most people inherent recognise the implication of such work of Art. And this is reflected upon the Muslims' love Archs, domes in their basic home and especially mosque architecture.

" Man is not a pilgrim but a pilgrimage. And obviously there are problems, great problems. Problems don't exist for animals and trees and rocks and rivers, problems exist only for man -- because everything else is defined, everything is settled already by nature itself. Nature has left man unsettled; man has been left to his own efforts, his own endeavours. But these problems have to be understood not as problems, but as challenges not enemies, but as friends -- because it is only through them that one learns, one knows, one becomes.

Because of this search, maps have to be devised, designs have to be devised. Because of this search, you will need guidelines. Remember, a map is just a map, it is not the country that it represents. The map of India is not India. No design is the truth. The design is just a design, but it can help tremendously. A map can help tremendously, knowing perfectly well that the map is not the country. The map does not even resemble the country -- by seeing the map of India you will not be seeing anything of India. The map resembles nothing. The map is just a parallel device; it is a metaphor, a symbolic representation.

But it can be of great help. Those who have gone beyond can create designs for you -- that's the function of a Master.

Those who have known, those who have arrived, those who have attained to their definition, those who are no longer just existential but who have become essences; those who have become souls, crystallised, centred, grounded; those who are -- can give you a few guidelines, a few hints, a few maps.

Sufis call them designs, and there exists a school of Sufis called 'the designers' -- NAQSHBANDI. It is one of the most important Sufi schools. There are others. They are all called by names like this. Another school is called 'the weavers', another school is called 'the boatmakers'. Sufis have such names. Those names are very practical -- they immediately indicate what the school is doing.
NAQSHBANDIS have been designing maps -- what in India we call YANTRA. A YANTRA is called a design by Sufis. You may have seen Indian yantras and you may be puzzled about what they are. Looking at a YANTRA there are only lines, geometrical designs -- but if you know how to decode it, you will be surprised. It is the map of your whole journey. It shows something, but you will have to know the language. The map is in a certain language, it is not available to the public -- because the public can use it in a dangerous way. It hides great power within it. It can be given only to the initiates. All world religions have created their designs, but nothing to compare with the NAQSHBANDIS.
First it has to be understood that a map is a device -- arbitrary.

It is neither true nor false. It is simply useful or not useful. It is a utilitarian device. It has nothing to do with truth as such.

Once Buddha was asked, 'Can a Buddha lie? Can a man who is enlightened, lie?' Buddha said, 'He has to -- because he will have to devise maps. Maps are lies -- lies in the sense that they are not truth. They are indications towards truth. Once you have reached, you will throw away the map. It was just useful.' So Buddha has defined truth in a very novel way. He says, 'That which is useful is true.' His definition is very pragmatic, practical, very scientific. So is the attitude of the NAQSHBANDIS.

An ancient parable, a famous NAQSHBANDI parable, is that of a father who called his children out of a building which was on fire. When they ignored him, he called them to come and get the toy cars he had brought for them -- whereupon they came running. He did not have any toy cars but he saved his children's lives.

Now he lied. The children, small children, must have been playing inside the house. They must have become too involved in their play to see that the house was on fire. But the father was outside and he saw the danger and he called them. He shouted. 'Come out!' But they were so involved in their game that they didn't listen. He invented a lie. He said, 'Look! I have brought the toy cars that you have always wanted. So many, and so beautiful! Come on and take your toy cars!' And they all came running out.

There were no toy cars, the father was lying -- but he saved their lives.
Now this is a design, this is a NAQSHBANDI, this is a device. It is neither true nor false, but it is useful, tremendously useful. Will you say that when the father lied, he committed a sin? -- because all religions say, 'Be true. Speak the truth.'

It happens many times, because you are all children and the house is on fire and you won't listen. You are so involved in your games. Somebody is involved in money games, somebody in politics, somebody in something else. People are so much involved. To their very end they will remain clouded by their dreams and desires.

And the house is constantly on fire. Because you are living in death, the house is constantly on fire. Any moment you will be gone. But you are so much into your games that the Master has to devise something.

It happened....
A man used to come to a great saint and he would always ask, 'Sir, one thing puzzles me. You are so innocent, so pure, how is this possible? Suspicion arises in my mind that maybe you simply pretend. In this world of corruption, how can one be so pure and innocent and so virgin? How can one avoid being corrupted by the world? Maybe deep down you still carry the same thing but on the surface you have maintained it, you have maintained it well.'
One day the man came.

He again started to say the same thing. And the Master said, 'Listen, there is something more important to be said to you. Just show me your hand.' He looked at his hand, became very sad, closed his eyes and started to cry. The man said, 'What is the matter? Why are you crying, Sir? I have never seen you crying.'
He said, 'I am crying because only seven days are left. Within seven days you will be gone. Your lifeline is cut. Next Sunday you will die. That's why I am crying. Now you can ask whatsoever you want to ask. You wanted to ask something?'
The man said, 'I have forgotten. You have disturbed me very much. Only seven days?'
Now this Master was so loved by people, so much respected, that there was no reason to suspect that he would tell a lie.

The man rushed home, fell ill, didn't move from his bed for seven days, was sinking every day, stopped eating, could not sleep. The relatives gathered. On the seventh day they were just waiting, because the Master had said that as the sun sets, he would die. And there was just half an hour to go. The sun was just coming down, coming down, and relatives and friends and the wife and the children were crying and the man was just sinking into death. ,,
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Then the Master came and said to the man, 'I have one question to ask. In these seven days have you committed anything that you used to call sin, impurity, corruption, this and that? Did any idea come into your mind, any worldly idea?'

The man opened his eyes with great difficulty.

He said, 'What are you talking about? I am dying! How can a man have any ideas of sin or of the world when he is dying? Only death was there around me. It was coming closer. In these seven days there was not a single worldly desire in me. I was only thinking of God. I was praying, repeating God's name.'
The Master laughed. He said, 'You can get up. You are not going to die! That was only a design to show you why I am pure. Death surrounds me continuously. What does it matter whether it is coming in seven days or seven years or seventy years? It doesn't matter. It is only a question of time. It is coming -- that much is certain -- it Is coming. When death is coming, this becomes very, very clear to your consciousness. Life goes through a great change, a radical change.'

The man started laughing. He said, 'You played a joke!' He was perfectly okay; within minutes he was okay. But he said, 'Master, one thing, how could you lie?'

The Master said, 'It is neither a lie, nor a truth; it is a design, a NAQSHBANDI.'

Maps have been invented to help you. They are arbitrary. Never become too obsessed with a map. Use it if you can; if you cannot, forget all about it. It has nothing valuable in it beyond its use.
Man has been thrown into the world for a certain reason. That has to be understood. Christianity has given the idea to the whole world that man has been thrown into the world as a punishment. "
Posted on: December 03, 2007, 08:04:02 pm

"That is a very stupid idea. Not only is the idea stupid, it makes even God look stupid, arrogant and mad. He threw man into the world for SUCH a small thing! -- because Adam disobeyed him? Each child disobeys the father, has to disobey the father. In fact, by disobeying the father, he tries to define himself. That is the only way to define himself. Each child has to go against the parents some day or other. If he never goes against the parents he will never be. Then he will be just a sha-dow. He has to rebel; he has to say no. Remember, 'no-saying' is nothing but an effort to define yourself. When you go on saying yes, you lose definition.

Adam and Eve were doing what each child has to do. It is so psychological. God said, 'Don't eat the fruit of this tree, this tree of knowledge.' If you ask the Sufis they will say that this is a NAQSHBANDI, it is a design. God is provoking them to eat the fruit of this tree. He is not prohibiting; in fact, he is provoking. In the Garden of Eden there were millions of trees. If Adam had been left to himself to find the tree of knowledge he might not have found it yet. It was only one tree in those millions of trees; nothing was special about it. It was just an ordinary apple tree. There were millions of apple trees like it but this was poisoned by knowledge.

Why did God say to Adam, 'Don't eat the fruit of this tree?' Christians think that he wanted to discipline Adam, that he wanted him to be obedient.

That is not true. Ask the NAQSHBANDIS, because they are the people who know how to design things. They are the designers. They know that God designed the first design. He provoked Adam, challenged Adam. He created the idea and the desire to rebel by forcing an absurd commandment -- 'Don't eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge.' He created a longing in Adam and Eve.

They must have dreamed about this tree from then onwards. They must have gone around the tree again and again. They must have touched the fruit, they must have smelled the fruit, they must have been waiting for the right moment. They must have keen hesitant. Each child is afraid -- they must also have been afraid. Each child is. Many times they must have gone and come back, many times they must have been on the verge of committing disobedience, rebellion, and they must have become frightened -- 'If God comes to know, then what?' But how long can you resist this desire to say no? -- because the whole thing is a design. Once Adam says no to God he becomes himself. By saying no he defines himself.

That's why there is an age when children say no to every-thing. You say anything and they will say no. They are defining themselves. They are saying, 'This is my definition, this is "I am". You keep aloof. Let me be. This is my space. I don't want to do this.'

Just last night a sannyasin came with her small boy, so small, to take sannyas.

I looked at the boy, and there was Adam in the boy's eyes. He wanted to say no. His eyes were saying no. His whole body was saying no. And I loved the boy. When I put the mala on his head he threw it away!

It has to be so. The boy has some spirit, Adam's spirit. He was saving, 'How dare you? I am myself. I can't be defined by anybody else.' It was not in so many words -- he had no words -- but in his gesture, his reluctant look, his face, his withdrawing of the body, his throwing away of the mala.
That's what Adam did. He had to do it to be himself. It was a design from God. This interpretation has a beauty. The NAQSHBANDIS say it was a design from God to provoke Adam -- because unless he was provoked, he would never become grown-up. He had to say no to God so he could go on his way into the world. It is not a punishment, not at all. God is not arrogant.

When this child threw away the mala, I loved him as I have never loved any other small child. He has some courage. So small, but such great courage! So tiny, but ready to fight with the whole world! God did not punish Adam; God loved Adam. If Adam had followed God, there would have been no world, there would have been nobody here. It is by disobeying God, by saying no, that man became man, attained to his first definition, attained to his first feeling of being himself.
God is neither arrogant nor egoistic nor mad.

He must have loved and blessed Adam. That's my feeling too. When Adam was going out of the Garden of Eden there must have been a showering of God's blessing on him. Now he is going on his way. That's what every father would like his children to do. One day they should go on their own way; they should seek and search and be. How long can you remain protected? You have to go into insecurity, you have to go into sin, you have to go into the world. It is not expulsion, it is Adam's rebellion. And it is not punishment, it is well-planned and designed. It is by this design that God created the world.
Now Christians have not understood it at all and they have made a very foolish story out of it -- that God condemned Adam.

And then the second part of the story follows naturally. Then Jesus said yes to God and was accepted back again. Now Christians say that because Adam committed a sin of disobedience, the whole humanity suffered. And because Jesus accepted God again, said yes totally, the whole humanity was saved through Jesus.

This too is meaningless. How can you suffer for Adam's sin? And how can you be saved by Jesus being saved? Then where do you come in? What is your responsibility? Then you are just puppets. Adam committed a sin and you suffer. You have not been a participant in it. You don't know anything about Adam -- when he was, whether he ever was or not -- and you are suffering because Adam committed a sin.

This is unjust. Somebody committed a sin thousands of years ago, and you are suffering, you are being punished for it. This is very far-fetched justice! It doesn't look right. And then, two thousand years ago Jesus said yes to God, and was saved; and you are saved in Jesus being saved. So somebody commits a sin and you become a sinner, and somebody becomes a saint and you become a saint. Where do you come in? Then what is your responsibility? Then you are nothing. The whole drama is complete between Adam and Jesus. Whether you are or you are not makes no difference. If there had been no Adam you would not be here, and if there had been no Jesus you would never have been saved. All foolish attitudes. You are neither punished because of Adam nor are you saved because of Jesus. You will be whatsoever you are going to be by your own self, by your own responsibility. You will either miss or get, but it will be your responsibility.

The NAQSHBANDIS say that this was the first NAQSHBANDI, the first design that God created. He created a situation in which Adam rebelled. And since then man has been rebelling. Man has to go into the darkness to come back home. It is not a punishment. Man is not thrown into the world to be punished; man is thrown into the world to learn, to discover, to be.

Robert Frost used to pray every night. I loved his prayer. He used to say to God, 'God, if you forgive me my petitions against you, I promise you that I will forgive you your great sin against me.

I promise that I will forgive you your great sin against me and against humanity.'
It is meaningful. If Adam is thought to have committed a sin, it is a small sin. And Adam is a child -- he can be forgiven. But what about God? He provoked him. What about God? He created the whole situation. If Adam's act is thought to be a sin, then it is a small sin, a pecadillo, a very small sin. But what about God? Was he not aware of one very small thing a thing any psychologist knows about? -- that is, if you provoke, if you challenge, you create a situation. He provoked Adam -- that was his great sin. If Adam's sin is a sin, God's sin is greater.

But neither is a sin. I don't call Adam's sin a small sin and I don't call God's sin a great sin. It was simply a design to help Adam to move on his own, to stand on his own.
Have you watched? When trees bloom and the fruit comes and the seeds ripen, every tree tries to send its seeds far away -- with the wind, with the birds. And if the tree sometimes feels that the wind will not be able to take the seed, that the seed is heavy, then it creates devices, NAQSHBANDIS, to send the seed far away -- because if the seed falls underneath the big tree it wi never grow. It has to be on its own; it has to find its own space.

There are trees which grow their seeds with a small bit OF cotton around them. The seed is heavy but the cotton is weightless; the wind can take the cotton away.

Then the seed will also go away, far away, and will fall onto some open space where it can become a great tree.

That's what God did with Adam. He tried to push him away -- because you can grow only when you are on your own. One day the child has to be sent to the school, one day the child has to be sent to the hostel, one day the child has to go to the university. He goes crying and weeping. He does not want to leave the family and the familiar. He does not want to leave the past, the comfort, the protection, the security, the safety. He does not want to leave, but he has to be pushed. He has to be thrown into the world. That's what God did. It was a device.

Once you are thrown into the world you will learn on your own. Many times you will fail, that's natural, but by failing again and again, some insight will start arising in you. And that insight will take you back.
Adam came into the world... he had to come. When Adam learns, becomes, attains to his being, he becomes Christ. Christ is nothing but Adam who has become grown-up. Now he can go back home. Now God will welcome him there. He has learned. The world itself is a NAQSHBANDI for people to be.
'Consciousness is not like a thing: solid, complete, full and given.' It has to be learned, it has to be grown, it has to be guarded. You have to be a gardener of consciousness. You have to provide water, space, sun rays, fertilisers."
Posted on: December 03, 2007, 08:12:29 pm

You have to protect this small sprout -- very delicate it is, vulnerable it is, soft it is. It can be crushed by anything.

So remember: 'Consciousness is not like a thing: solid, complete, full and given. It is a process and a self-creation. It is our continual improvisation based on the rejection of what it has been up to this moment.'

This has to be understood. Consciousness grows only if you go on rejecting your past. Ordinarily we cling to the past -- then the consciousness does not grow. Whatsoever you have learned, forget about it. It is finished. You have learned it; you have absorbed it. Whatsoever you have been up to now, drop it so that you can be something more. Never be confined by your past. People who become confined by the past are the prisoners.

That's what NAQSHBANDI Sufis call the prison, the prison of the past. It has to be broken every day. Each moment one has to grow out of it.

'To be is to spurn from one what one has been. In so far as one does not do that, one approximates to a thing and ceases to be a person.' If you don't have any future, if you only have a past, you are a thing, not a person. A person is one who has a future. A person is one who is always unburdened by the past, who goes on dropping the past, who goes on rejecting it. It has been lived already so what is the point of carrying it? It has been known already, it has been experienced already; there is no need to go on repeating it.

When a person becomes non-repetitive, when he does not go on repeating the same experience again and again, he grows. Great growth happens.

'Man has the characteristic of self-transcendence.' You have to go beyond whatsoever you think of as yourself. Always and always you have to leave whatsoever you think of as yourself; you have to drop it, you have to renounce it.

This is what I call renunciation, sannyas. That's why I give you a new name when you are initiated -- just to indicate. Again it is a NAQSHBANDI -- it is just to indicate that your past is finished, that that chapter is closed. Start something new, a rebirth. Be born again. It is just a metaphor. If you understand it well, you can make great use of it. And from the moment you become a sannyasin, you have to remember it continuously. Every night when you go to bed to sleep, close your eyes and close the chapter that has passed. Be finished with it. Say to yourself that the past is no more. Consciously, deliberately, drop it, renounce it, so that the next morning you can be fresh again, clean again, young again, innocent again. Only then does consciousness grow.
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'Man has the characteristic of self-transcendence.' He is as something to be surpassed. In plain language, man is free -- or rather, man is freedom. Freedom is the essence of man, or, in man existence precedes essence. Man first is, only afterwards is this or that.

Man must create for himself his own essence, his own soul, his own being. Man is a continual birth -- by himself, to himself, through himself, for himself.'

This is the task, the life task, that faces everybody. And for this you need maps. All religions are different kinds of maps. And remember never to mix maps. If you are using one map, use it with great alertness, awareness, dedication, commitment. Don't mix it with other maps because different maps have been made by different people with different ideas behind them. They are not planned on the same lines. One map may be a road map, another map may be a railway line, another may be a political map showing boundaries, another may be a religious map showing something else, another may be a geographical map showing something else. All maps are different devices by different people. Don't mix the maps, otherwise you will become confused. If you are using one map, one map is enough.

That's why I am very much against the efforts that go on in the world to synthesise all religions. They cannot be synthesised. It will be as stupid and as foolish as somebody synthesising chemistry and psychology and physiology and physics and biology and history and geography and religion. It will be as absurd. The different religions are different maps showing different territories, different ways.

Yes, there is ultimately one truth, they all arrive at the same goal -- but they start from different standpoints.

Their starting points are different. The ultimate arriving point is-the same but there is no need to make a synthesis of the starting points. otherwise you will be confused. So whatsoever map appeals to you -- listen deeply to your heart -- whatsoever map appeals to you, then be dedicated to it, be committed to it. "

Iman hope this has shade some light in detail.

Ises to the most I,

Irie I

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